Dragonlance D&D Game Blog

In between the previous session and this one, not only did the missing player drop out, but so did another player (leaving us with only one player), who also happened to be the host. He had a great space for playing... sorry to lose that space. So I suspended the game until we could get some players. Out of the several who seemed interested, only one actually made it to the point of creating a character... The next session would soon be on. Since the session was going to begin with the PCs on the boat to the island, I did a little retcon and said that Theo (the new character) was always on the ship, the dwarf (who had never actually played) was never there, and the mage (who did take part in the first session) was staying behind to guard the ship. So now we had a half-elf ranger, a kender rogue, and I added in one of the pirates (named Royan) to help explore the sea devils lair as an NPC "fighter" I controlled. Once on the island, they already knew from the ghost of Captain ...

If you haven't heard, an animated version of the first Dragonlance book, Dragons of Autumn Twilight is coming out on DVD later this year. Here's the first trailer:

Ok ... so last time I left off with the characters having just fought off some crazed pirates from a derelict ship. The PCs never tried to figure out just what was going on here, so I may end up trying to tie this scene into something larger later in the campaign. That night the ranger saw a distant light getting closer and closer and clearly heading in their direction. As the light got closer, the ranger (Hunter is the character name) saw the ghostly image of a man walking on the water. Hunter waited to see what the ghost wanted and watched as it "walked" into the bottom of the ship and levitate up through the floors to reach topside. Quickly the elven mage , Hunter, and the ship captain (named Jonas Grumby , btw ) talked to the ghostly image of a dead pirate who sought out the PCs to help free his soul and end his undead state. Captain Fletcher needed the PCs to retrieve an item (a gem known as the Eye of the Sea Dragon) and return it to the Temple of the Pirate God in the ...

Note: This is the second time I ran this module. The first group fell apart before completing the module and I chose to rerun the beginning again with a second group. (I'll add some commentary about differences from the first and second group where notable) For the first session, the party consisted of: (Silvenesti) Elven Mage Half-Elf Ranger (We were supposed to have dwarven fighter, but that player didn't show up and dropped out before actually playing) The group started out in the city of Solace (well know from the original Dragonlance novels). I didn't worry too much about why they were there, but they were all recruited by a business man to take some documents (a trade agreement) by boat to a merchant working out of the city of Dun Eamon and Flotsam. The agreement was, at this point, just the catalyst to move people from A to B. (But there might be further advs that involve either of these business men or the agreement in general... I always like to keep my options ope...

I know I was going to write about the first game session, but I also want to touch a bit on the campaign, in some broad strokes. First, I always like to think of D&D in terms of campaigns, there's a beginning (typically characters at 1st level), and a series of adventures. Some are directly connected to a longer plot, some are just one-and-done adventures, and others seemingly have no connection, but in the end turn out to be related to the main plot. I came up with this idea long before shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and X-Files, but I see them as great examples of what I try to do in my games. They were great at doing long arcs as well as one-shot eps that had no real connection to the over-all plot. For my games, I typically work backward. I usually know the climax adventure (which is never a 1st level adv) and then work at filling in the advs that would lead a party from 1st level to the level and location of the beginning of the finale. I'll use published mods fro...

I know I've commented on the trials and tribulations of trying to get players for the D&D game I've just started, but I'm still amazed at all the ways players (or in this case potential players) wig out on me. This time, and it appears to be happening concurrently among three different potential people (which is not to say that they are not fully formed people, though that may be the case here) have all seemingly vanished, in a move that would make David Copperfield jealous. All I had to do with each of these people is say "When can we get together to make a character?" It turns out those seemingly innocuous words have more effect than a dozen "Power Word, Kill" spells to render certain people non-existant (at least to me). Oh well, at least I have three players (as of today), and a forth session already lined up... Next Time: A (previous) game session report